TY - GEN
T1 - Do Maths Anxiety and Gender Limit the Spontaneous Home Usage of an Educational Game? A Preliminary Study
AU - Dondio, Pierpaolo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
PY - 2026
Y1 - 2026
N2 - In this study, we examined the spontaneous use of an educational game at home after pupils were exposed to it during a six-week game-based learning intervention in school. We investigated what influenced this decision, focusing on two factors—maths anxiety and gender—that are known to potentially act as barriers to both maths engagement and video game engagement. The game interactions of 1,900 primary school students were monitored for three months after the classroom intervention. We found that half of the students played the 7 Spells game at home. As expected, game performance and game enjoyment significantly predicted the decision to continue playing from home. Notably, however, maths anxiety did not limit home play, and no gender effect was found—girls played as much as boys. Our findings underscore the potential of educational games to foster spontaneous practice, making maths practice more inclusive and sustainable beyond the classroom.
AB - In this study, we examined the spontaneous use of an educational game at home after pupils were exposed to it during a six-week game-based learning intervention in school. We investigated what influenced this decision, focusing on two factors—maths anxiety and gender—that are known to potentially act as barriers to both maths engagement and video game engagement. The game interactions of 1,900 primary school students were monitored for three months after the classroom intervention. We found that half of the students played the 7 Spells game at home. As expected, game performance and game enjoyment significantly predicted the decision to continue playing from home. Notably, however, maths anxiety did not limit home play, and no gender effect was found—girls played as much as boys. Our findings underscore the potential of educational games to foster spontaneous practice, making maths practice more inclusive and sustainable beyond the classroom.
KW - digital game-based learning
KW - maths anxiety
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105027551565
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-032-11043-5_40
DO - 10.1007/978-3-032-11043-5_40
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105027551565
SN - 9783032110428
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
SP - 394
EP - 400
BT - Games and Learning Alliance - 14th International Conference, GALA 2025, Proceedings
A2 - Bakkes, Sander
A2 - Bellotti, Francesco
A2 - Dondio, Pierpaolo
A2 - Ninaus, Manuel
A2 - Wannick, Vanissa
A2 - Bucchiarone, Antonio
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - 14th International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, GALA 2025
Y2 - 19 November 2025 through 21 November 2025
ER -